Over on NYMag.com, Plattypants has an extensive interview with Michael Pollan, the Omnivore’s Dilemma author who—as Platt points out—has become “a sort of high priest of food.” The conversation meanders from Yodels and Stouffer’s Salisbury steak (staples of Pollan’s childhood), to the problems with Go-Gurt and what amounts to a mini oral history of how Omnivore’s Dilemma came to be.

Seriously, this thing covers a lot of ground and is an interesting read when you get a chance. For now, we’ll leave you with Pollan’s take on why food has become such an obsession at this particular moment in time:

I think it’s interesting that this strikingly powerful interest in all things having to do with food coincides with a progressively more mediated, digitized life. We spend our time in front of screens. We don’t exercise our other senses very much. And food is this complete sensory experience. It engages all five senses. It’s a sensual pleasure. And it is also—and I think this is a very important part of the food movement—really a communitarian movement. What’s driving people to food in many, many places is the kind of experience you can have at a farmers’ market. It’s really a new public square.